


Splats and Spooks

by MagicalBunny



Series: Inkopolis Heroes [3]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: Halloween Special
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 07:45:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16471592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicalBunny/pseuds/MagicalBunny
Summary: Chiaki decides to show Rina and Lexi one of the older turf war stages. Turns out that it's haunted!





	Splats and Spooks

It was the night of the Splatoween Splatfest, and the square was jam packed with Inklings dancing to Pearl and Marina's concert and hanging out between turf matches. The large, pale moon shone down on the square, adding an eerie glow to the otherwize festive party. Towards the back, near Crusty Sean's food truck, a trio sat around a table, relaxing after many turf matches together.  
The octoling girl removed her hockey mask and wiped some sweat from her brow.  
"Phew. I'm so close to hitting treat queen, but I need a break. What about you, Rina?"  
The inkling girl with the hat with the charm hanging down shrugged. "I'm about at the same point as you, Lexi. Chiaki?"  
The final Inkling girl with the horn headband on looked up from her phone and blinked. "I already hit treat queen...?"  
"You what?!" The other two yelled, eyes widening.  
"Chiaki, you played some matches without us?!" Rina looked offended, and Chiaki put her hands up in defense.  
"Woah, calm down. So what if I played a few rounds on my own? It's not a crime, is it?"  
"No, it's not," Lexi replied, scratching her cheek. "It's just..."  
"We thought you'd wait for us!" Rina interrupted, crossing her arms and huffing. "I wanted us to all hit queen together."  
"Oh, jeez... I'm sorry you two," Chiaki frowned, casting her gaze away. "I had no idea. I haven't exactly really played a Splatfest with anyone in years, so..."  
"I-It's okay!" Lexi jumped, turning to Rina, giving her a pleading look. "Right...?"  
Rina was quiet for a moment, before sighing and shrugging. "Yeah, it's alright, Chi. It's not like there won't be more Splatfests."  
Chiaki seemed to relax at this, and nodded. "Yeah. I'll wait for you both next time."  
Chiaki went back to her phone while Lexi got them all drinks. Rina seemed surprised that Chiaki had a sweet tooth, to which Chiaki huffed and buried her face in her phone again. That's when Rina choose to strike.  
"Why are you so buried in your phone? Come on, party a bit! It's Splatoween!"  
"I'm just... thinking about stuff."  
"That's Chiaki talk for 'I don't wanna talk about it', which means that it's important. So out with it."  
"I'd really rather not."  
Rina crossed her arms and pouted. When Chiaki showed no signs of letting up, she reached across the table and plucked it straight from her hands. Chiaki let out an indignant cry, scrambling to grab her phone back. However, it was too late. Rina was faced with what looked like an old team photo from years ago on some sort of stage she's never seen before. She didn't get much of a chance to look before Chiaki was up and snatched her phone back.  
"Rude," Chiaki grumbled, shoving her phone into her bag.  
"Hey, Chi. What stage was that? I've never seen it."  
"Oh." Chiaki leaned back in her chair. She watched as Lexi returned and set down their drinks. "It was a stage from when I was your age."  
"What stage?" Lexi tilted her head and leaned forward a bit, intrigued. Sometimes Chiaki forgot how much more experience she had compared to all of them.  
"It was Museum D'Alfonsino. The stage was decommissioned awhile ago," Chiaki explained. "But I can show you guys if you want."  
"Really?!" Lexi's eyes were sparkling. Rina looked a bit unsure.  
"Isn't that, ya know... illegal?"  
Chiaki shrugged. "It's just for a quick look around. Pretty sure it'll be fine."  
Rina sighed. "If you say so."  
"We'll have to take the train, though. The old underground ink passages were decommissioned as well, so we can't get there from Inkopolis Plaza," Chiaki explained. "We'll have to take a train to the museum, from there we should be able to super jump to the courtyard where the matches were held."  
"Well then! Let's go!" Rina grabbed their hands and the trio headed to the train station.

\-----

The trio successfully snuck into the court yard and into the decommissioned stage. The rotating platforms moved no longer, and the stage was dark. Chiaki, Rina, and Lexi stood on one of the old spawn points. Lexi squatted down to admire the machine while Chiaki looked around and smiled a bit, old memories returning.  
"It used to be really lit up at night. It was pretty. Come on, no. Need to just sit around. Let's go to the center, and I can tell you more."  
Chiaki led them onto the center platform, climbing it by covering the wall with ink from her roller. The duo followed, amazed at the view.  
"If my memory is correct, there were five total rotating platforms, kind of the way Wahoo World has a spinning platform."  
Chiaki paused when she suddenly heard a giggle, and turned to Rina.  
"Is... something funny?"  
"Huh?" Rina returned her confused look. "What do you mean?"  
"Didn't you just... giggle?"  
"No, but I definitely heard someone laughing."  
Lexi began looking around. "There's no way anyone else would be here, right?"  
"No," Chiaki replied, rubbing her neck. "This stage hasn't been used in a long time."  
Again, there was another giggle, coming from the other side of them. A cold, harsh breeze blew by, and Rina shivered and hugged herself.  
"Hey, uh... Chi? Maybe we should go back to the party..."  
"I agree," Lexi replied softly, her voice barely hiding her fear. Chiaki looked a little disappointed, but she nodded.  
"Yeah, alright. There isn't much more to see, anyways."  
"Aw! Leaving so soon!  
"That's hardly fair, girls! We haven't had company in forever!"  
The Trio froze in place as two misty Inkling figures appeared. They were grinning, mischievous smiles on their faces. They were at a loss for words as the misty duo hovered before them.  
"Didn't you know? This place is haunted at night!"  
"Normally we can't even appear, but they DO say Splatoween is the time the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest..."  
The girls giggle again, and one of them floats over to Rina, ghosting a finger under her chin.  
"My my... How gorgeous you are. You remind me of someone I once knew!"  
Rina clenched her teeth, pulling away quickly.  
"Chiaki, Lexi. L... let's go."  
The trio turned to run, but suddenly they heard the electronic click of all the doors locking, and... some sort of retractable roof began to close overhead. Chiaki's eyes went wide, and she quickly tried to super jump out, but the two halves of the ceiling closed and locked in place, and Chiaki ended up smashing into it head first. Rina was the second to jump up, though not with as much force, and quickly caught Chiaki in the air as she fell. Rina landed hard, cradling her friend in her arms. Chiaki blinked, shaped her head and stood back up with the help of Rina.  
"They locked us in," Lexi said softly, running to join the others.  
"Don't look so spooked," one of the inkling spirits said. Upon closer inspection, she had long tentacles much like Chiaki's. The other spirit had shorter tentacles and seemed to follow the longer tentacled inkling around.  
"We actually have a little game for you three. We've never played Turf War before, and we've always wanted to. If you play a round of turf war with us, we'll let you go! But here's the fun part..."  
The shorter inkling ghost immediately locked eyes with Rina. She laughed, and then lunged at the Inkling girl, knocking her over.  
"Rina!" Chiaki and Lexi ran over to their friend, worry clear on their face as the other Inkling ghost laughed hysterically.  
"Don't bother! She can't hear you anymore!" The spirit laughed with glee.  
Chiaki looked up at the spirit, anger welling up inside her chest. Though her attention turned back to her friend when she heard Lexi sniffling. When she looked down, Rina's eyes were colorless and glazed over. Once a rich orange, now an empty, blank white.  
Chiaki felt something inside her snap, and in a blind rage she rushed towards the spirit, oblivious to Lexi's desperate cry for her to stop. The other spirit swooped over again, knocking Chiaki forward and joining with her friend again.  
"Play a match with us," the girl demanded again. "If you win, we restore your friend. If we win, well... You and your friends will join us in the spirit world! It gets so lonely here, you know?"  
Chiaki pushed herself up, grumbling. She looked back at Rina and Lexi, then back at the spirits.  
"Fine. Two on two. Get me a roller and her a splattershot. We've taken down tougher."  
"Chiaki?!"  
Chiaki turned around, giving Lexi a wink and a thumbs up.  
"Don't worry. We're Inkopolis' heroes, remember? We've faced the end of the world together. This will be a piece of cake compared to that!"

\-----

With the snap of one of the ghost's fingers, the stage suddenly became alive. The groaning of the motors that haven't moved in a long time, the hum of the old respawn machines as they turned on once more. Rina had been moved to their spawn point. The ghost duo were the white team, their ink giving off an eerie glow. Chiaki and Lexi were purple, and tonight their ink pulsed with light. As soon as the signal to start was given, they were off. Chiaki immediately rushed to the middle to claim the center rotating platform and to keep the ghost duo from advancing while Lexi stayed behind to ink whatever Chiaki had missed. Together, they were very coordinated. And the other two were... not.  
Then it occurred to Chiaki. They had never played a turf war before. They were pretty much level 1. Beginners. This was their first turf war.  
By the end of the match, it was pretty much no contest. Chiaki and Lexi had won by a long shot.  
"Well, I believe we won fair and square. Please restore our friend," Chiaki said, approaching the spirits. She could tell they were disappointed about their loss. So, she smiled. "Don't look so gloomy. You did amazing for beginners."  
The older girl looked up, blinking away tears. "Really?!"  
"Of course!" Chiaki chuckled. "You had us worried for a bit there."  
"I'm sorry," the younger spirit said, wiping her eyes. "We just wanted to have fun too. Yuka and I never got to play our first match."  
The older spirit, Yuka, nodded. "We'll tell you more about ourselves in a moment, but first, we should revive your friend."

\-----  
It took a bit for Rina to wake back up, and even then she was still really out of it. The five of them were sitting on the center platform together. They had shut the stage down again and opened the roof, and they sat together in the eerie glow of the moon.  
"I died in a car crash on the way to my first turf war match," Yuka explained. She pointed to one of the statues the one of the Inkling girl sitting down. "My father carved that in my memory. He's an artist. He donated it to the museum once he learned it would be on display on a turf war map." She smiled a bit, looking up at the sky. "Can you do me a favor and tell him... tell him that I love him? And that I'm okay? I think he still worries about me." She chuckles sadly. "He always did worry about me."  
The younger girl leaned against her friend. "I'm Mika. I was really sick when I was alive. I had an episode while I was waiting in the lobby and unfortunately, I passed away..."  
Rina suddenly snapped to attention.  
"So I was right!" Rina suddenly jumped up, though Lexi had to catch her since she was still uneasy. "Mika, it's me, Rina! We used to go to school together!"  
Mika stared at Rina, her face scrunched up in thought, before her eyes went wide.  
"Oh my cod...!"  
Rina began to explain to her friends that Mika and Rina used to be friends and used to hang out together all the time. Unfortunately, Rina ended up transferring schools, and the two had lost contact.  
"I heard from your family when you passed and I went to the funeral and everything. How spooky is that?"  
"It is Splatoween," Lexi pointed out.  
"I have a statue here too because my parents commissioned Yuka's father to create a memorial statue for me. That's how I met her."  
Mika turned to Rina, clapping her hands together. "Rina, please go visit my family and tell them that I'm okay, and that they don't need to worry anymore. Please?"  
Rina nodded.  
"Promise."  
After that, the hero trio decided to depart. They said their final farewells to the ghostly duo, before leaving and returning to the party.

\-----

It was a chilly morning. Chiaki was exhausted, bundled up in a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and a beanie. She felt out of place standing in front of this huge, nice looking house. This is where Yuka said she lived. With a sigh, she knocked rung the doorbell. A sweet middle aged inkling woman answered, looking a bit confused when she saw Chiaki.  
"Oh, I thought you were another trick or treater..."  
"Sorry, ma'am. I'm just delivering a message to you. You and your husband, that is. Yuka, your daughter, says that she loves you two very much and misses you with each passing day. She also wants you to know that she's fine, and she does want you to worry about her anymore."  
The woman froze, staring down at this stranger, tearing up. She turned around, calling into her house.  
"Honey!! Yuka's alright!!"  
Chiaki couldn't help but smile a bit. Mission accomplished. Now she could only hope Rina's doing alright, too.

\-----

Rina was bundled up, jacket and scarf. She walked down the street to the apartment building her friend lived in. It was rather run down, but it always had been. She remembered her friend's apartment, still. She took the elevator up, and knocked on the door. A tired older inklingg answered, blinking wearily at Rina.  
"Hello. I'm sorry it's been awhile, but it's me... Rina. I used to be friends with your daughter Mika." Rina paused, swallowing hard. She wrung her hands together nervously, choking back tears. "She says she's okay, and she doesn't want you to worry anymore."  
The man stood there for a moment, then pulled Rina into a hug.  
"It's alright," he said, his voice gentle. "Thank you for telling me."

\-----

That night, the festival resumed. Chiaki, Lexi, and Rina continued their battle for team treat, and eventually, Lexi and Rina both hit treat queen together.  
As for Yuka and Mika, however, fate had something else in store for them.  
"Yuka, that light... Can we go now?"  
"They actually did it," Yuka replied, smiling. Tears came to the ghost girl's eyes as she smiled. "Yes, we can go now."  
"Can we go together?" Mika looked up, tears in her own eyes. She held out her hand.  
"Together," Yuka repeated, taking Mika's hand. "Forever and always."  
Together, the two spirits walked into the light and disappeared into the night. Together, they finally found peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! This took me all month to write, so I hope you enjoy!


End file.
